Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN HE LEFT IN THE STORM|
The rain came down so hard that Chicago’s skyline disappeared behind a curtain of silver water.
Claire Moretti stood beneath the entrance canopy of the Blackstone Hotel, one hand gripping the stone column beside her, the other pressed against her injured knee. Blood slipped beneath the hem of her evening dress, mixing with rainwater and running toward the curb.
Twenty yards away, Vincent Moretti stood beside his black Bentley.
Chicago’s most feared mafia boss looked as immaculate as ever in his tailored black suit. His expression could silence an entire room. Men twice his size lowered their eyes when he passed. Politicians answered his calls. Businessmen smiled at his jokes even when they weren’t funny.
Yet the woman standing beside him was not his wife.
Sophia Reynolds, his twenty-eight-year-old executive assistant, clutched his arm beneath the only umbrella left by the hotel entrance.
“Vincent, I’m freezing,” she whispered.
“I know.” His voice softened. “Come closer.”
He tilted the umbrella toward her, allowing the rain to soak his own shoulder. Then he brushed a wet strand of hair away from her cheek with a tenderness Claire had not seen directed at herself in years.
Claire stared at them.
Five years earlier, Vincent had promised that no storm would ever touch her while he was alive.
Apparently, that promise had an exception.
She had approached him only moments before, believing he might finally acknowledge her in public. The gala had ended late, and the storm had caught everyone by surprise. When she saw the umbrella in his hand, she had instinctively moved toward him.
He had looked at her.
He had recognized her.
Then he had turned away.
“Someone from the company might see us,” he had once explained when she tried to share his umbrella outside a restaurant. “You know the rules, Claire.”
She had accepted those rules because she loved him.
Tonight, she watched him break every one of them for another woman.
Sophia glanced over Vincent’s shoulder. Her eyes found Claire beneath the canopy, and something like triumph flickered across her face.
“Is that your consultant?” Sophia asked innocently. “The one who always seems to be around when you’re working?”
Vincent barely looked back.
“Forget her. Get in the car.”
Claire turned away before either of them could see her expression.
She took three steps into the rain.
Her heel caught on the uneven pavement.
The world tilted.
She struck the ground hard enough to knock the breath from her lungs. Pain exploded through her knee. Her clutch skidded into a puddle, and the small silver bracelet her mother had given her rolled beneath a parked car.
For several seconds, she could not move.
Then she looked toward the Bentley.
Vincent was still holding the umbrella over Sophia.
He opened the passenger door, helped her inside, and leaned down to say something that made her laugh.
He never looked back.
Claire’s phone vibrated.
Vincent: Get a car home. Sophia's soaked, so I'm taking her back first.
A second message appeared.
Vincent: Don't start an argument over this.
Claire read the words twice.
She had once waited three hours outside a hospital while Vincent underwent emergency surgery after a shooting. She had spent nights beside his bed, afraid to close her eyes in case he stopped breathing. She had learned how to clean blood from expensive shirts and how to remain silent when armed men entered their home.
She had mistaken endurance for love.
Now she sat bleeding in the rain while the man she had protected from loneliness drove another woman home.
A hotel employee hurried toward her with an umbrella.
“Ma’am! Are you hurt?”
Claire looked down at her bloodied knee, then toward the empty street where Vincent’s Bentley had disappeared.
“Yes,” she answered quietly.
The employee knelt beside her.
“Should I call your husband?”
Claire almost laughed.
Instead, she placed her phone in his hand and said the first honest thing she had said about her marriage in years.
“No. Please call me a car.”
May you like
That night, Claire Moretti stopped waiting for her husband to turn around.
And Vincent had no idea that the woman he had left behind was already beginning to disappear from his life.
